Coffee machines suitable for preparing and dispensing various types of beverages are known in the specific technological sector.
In machines of the conventional type, the beverages are prepared with a certain amount of manual dexterity by the operator who, for example, heats and froths milk in a jug and then pours it into the cup and mixes it with the coffee in order to form cappuccino.
Modern technology and the massive use of electronics are also giving rise in this type of machine to an increasingly greater automation of the operations such that they may also be performed by operators who are less expert in the techniques for preparing the various beverages.
Apart from coffee, cappuccino and tea, a beverage which is becoming increasingly popular among consumers is hot chocolate which traditionally is prepared by mixing the chocolate-based product with milk and then heating the whole preparation using the conventional steam spout of a coffee machine.
Instead of conventional soluble products in powder form, chocolate-based fluid preparations in concentrated form, which need to be diluted, are becoming increasingly widespread.
These latter preparations, in fact, have the advantage that they may pass from a sterile container which contains them to the sealed distribution pipes inside the apparatus without any particular risk of contamination which could adversely affect the hygienic conditions of the beverage.
Inventors have observed that the use of concentrated fluid milk as a primary source for the various uses in coffee machines is becoming increasingly widespread and that a problem arises as to how to use the milk source during preparation of the chocolate when the latter is in turn obtained from a concentrated fluid product.
The direct mixing of a quantity of concentrated fluid milk with a corresponding quantity of concentrated chocolate-based product for preparation of the chocolate-based beverage is not easy to achieve and may produce results which are not satisfactory from a qualitative point of view.